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June 2001
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The Funny Thing About Cholesterol
The most dangerous cholesterol of all may be one that's not being measured.
By Jim Atkinson
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The author, Jim Atkinson, learned about the limits of conventional cholesterol testing when his physician decided to request an advanced lipid profile from Berkeley HeartLab. Atkinson was already on medication for high cholesterol, and, by standard testing, had adequately reduced his heart risk. But his doctor felt an advanced profile would be "'more useful,'" confirming Atkinson's suspicion that "those basic cholesterol numbers are on their way to some form of limited obsolescence, like, say, floppy disks."
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The Berkeley HeartLab tests revealed Atkinson had a previously undetected small LDL trait—his LDL particles were predominantly small, a genetic condition that enabled them to enter the artery walls with ease and deposit their cargo of cholesterol there.
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"Talk to your doctor about getting an advanced lipid profile," he tells Esquire readers, "particularly if your numbers [in conventional lipid tests] tend to fall within the borderline range. (Mine's already proved worth its cost… my numbers have all improved.)"
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